Brian Dys

Category: Reading List

  • Reading List: Week 5, January 2023

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    In this new work world, it is more important than ever for leaders to build an environment where individuals feel safe, supported and respected.

    Carmen Whitney Orr in Why 2023 should be the year of the empathetic leader

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”sWkkIiTJMYc” photographer=”Adam Griffith”]

    The truth, though, is that everyone is muddling through life, doing their best to keep the wolf from the door, and to have a few laughs along the way.

    Jonny Thomson in Can’t move on? Here’s what the Buddhist idea of anattā teaches about letting go

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”tNqBjuUzF9U” photographer=”Ryan Franco”]

    The company continues to produce value incidentally through inertia, but it’s now much harder to steer, and there is a lot of inefficiency and waste. If the world changes significantly it’ll have a harder time pivoting.

    Raemon in Recursive Middle Manager Hell

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”tEIHSmfwznM” photographer=”Issy Bailey”]

    Rather than thinking that our failures make us weak, unworthy or isolate us from others, this pillar of self-compassion encourages us to foster a sense of universal belonging.

    Dr. Hannah Rose in The Abilene paradox: When not rocking the boat may sink the boat

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”b3XnJnI0yQc” photographer=”Ian Keefe”]

  • Reading List: Week 4, June 2022

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    TRIZ works to formalize the belief that somebody, somewhere has already solved your problem. Just as different species have converged upon similar biological solutions when faced with shared environmental constraints (like the dorsal fin helping both dolphins and sharks thrive in the ocean), TRIZ helps us recognize engineering strategies that have converged across categories and industries, when faced with shared technical constraints.

    An In-The-Box Method for Creative Problem Solving

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”P_qvsF7Yodw” photographer=”Alain Pham”]

    The agency has also revised projections for its old web developers and digital designers category; it now projects the category will grow almost 40% between 2020 and 2030, validating the demand that so many people working across the tech and design industries have been feeling for years.

    Digital design is now a real job

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”gL3-jTs_Q7g” photographer=”Girl with red hat”]

    This all leads to a strange and provocative conclusion: Time is contagious. As we converse with and consider one another, we step in and out of one other’s experience, including the other’s perceptions (or what we imagine to be another’s perception, based on our own experience) of time

    Time Is Contagious

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”2QNFLX8fRbg” photographer=”Raimond Klavins”]

    Young workers would make viral TikToks about how older workers look like crap all day, blearily wandering from their beds to their couches. WFH is for dumpy Millennials and Never leaving your house is kinda pathetic! would be the general idea.

    How a Recession Could Weaken the Work-From-Home Revolution

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”pPV-kqfs5wA” photographer=”Amanda Vick”]

  • Reading List: Week 4, June 2022

    A great leader inspires the team and elevates the people around them. They build a vision that engages and rallies people. With their craft skills, design leads can present the North Star with a powerful enough narrative to excite all disciplines.

    What is the job of a Design Lead?

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”3QXTJHiB1uQ” photographer=”Andrew Neel”]

    A RACI, also known as a responsibility-assignment matrix, outlines how individuals with different specializations will participate in tasks such as work phases (e.g., discovery), activities (e.g., usability testing), and creation of deliverables (e.g., writing a screener or designing a prototype).

    Setting UX Roles and Responsibilities in Product Development: The RACI Template

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”BW0vK-FA3eg” photographer=”Clint Adair”]

    Often, you’ve become a manager, because you’re someone who loved mentoring and developing junior folks, and you’ve been tapped for management because people thrived with your support.

    Performance Management as a New Manager: An Overview (Part I)

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”TK_WT3dl2tw” photographer=”Ahmad Odeh”]

    Once we get rid of the illusionary multitasking and the toxic productivity, cognitive bottlenecks are not inherently bad. They are just characteristics of our mind we need to consider when we plan our work and interact with the world.

    Cognitive bottlenecks: the inherent limits of the thinking mind

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”IY1sRDxNWN4″ photographer=”Todd Cravens”]

  • Reading List: Week 3, June 2022

    Many claims never get ‘debunked’ or definitively refuted, they just fade away as people stop talking about them, and you don’t notice an absence if you are simply reading what is put in front of you by the media or journals.

    Fake Journal Club: Teaching Critical Reading

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”HH4WBGNyltc” photographer=”Jaredd Craig”]

    Identify the people and activities you care most deeply about. Prioritize them ruthlessly.

    It’s Later Than You Think

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”Cq9slNxV8YU” photographer=”Marisa Howenstine”]

    Onboarding is less about delivering information about your company, and more about allowing new employees to get to know each other and ask questions in a safe and supportive setting.

    Gen Z Employees Are Feeling Disconnected. Here’s How Employers Can Help.

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”XB_yndXE4ks” photographer=”Taylor Smith”]

    The key is to understand that specificity trades off against freedom, and then to consciously choose for yourself a location that best suits your personality and temperament.

    The Freedom-Specificity Tradeoff

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”SGbN6m69UEE” photographer=”Israel Piña”]

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  • Reading List: Week 1, June 2022

    Just because someone presents an argument, it does not mean that it is as valid as another point of view. Trying to meet in the middle with a false compromise could lead you further from the truth or away from the correct conclusion.

    The false compromise fallacy: why the middle ground is not always the best

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”Dq0N1y0YHC8″ photographer=”Luke van Zyl”]

    Being an empathetic leader means fighting against your own biases, listening carefully to your reports, then using any privileges you have (by virtue of your leadership role or other factors) to take action on their behalf.

    A Manager’s Guide to Helping Teams Face Down Uncertainty, Burnout and Perfectionism

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”o04xDvWE33U” photographer=”Tangerine Newt”]

    Almost anyone you know and respect as a writer is known and respected because they’re able to muster brute, linear willfulness. Even if they use Roam Research or whatever, if they’re actually publishing a real body of work, then it’s their brute linear willfulness despite the handicapping of knowledge graph overwhelm.

    Personal Knowledge Management is Bullshit

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”ZiQkhI7417A” photographer=”Alina Grubnyak”]

    But the deferred life plan was a bit more sinister. It was an elusive pursuit of fleeting happiness. It was a flawed belief that my life would start once I hit “my number.” Or when I retired at sixty.

    Saying goodbye to the “deferred life plan”

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”KxQYNqp329Y” photographer=”Gian Luca Pilia”]

  • Reading List: Week 5, May 2022

    Instead of blindly following organisational goals, servant leaders prioritise the well-being and development of individuals within their team. This results in better engagement, better mental health, and better personal growth.

    Servant leadership: why being a servant leader is worth the work

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”hkkQbPa49UA” photographer=”Briana Tozour”]

    Say you’re about to announce a decision. But instead of falling back on your authority to justify it — because after all, you’re the boss and what you say goes — imagine you have to justify your decision. You have to walk people through your data and analysis.

    To Avoid Making These 7 Classic Strategic Mistakes, Science Says Ask Yourself 5 Questions

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”KTpSVEcU0XU” photographer=”Vladislav Babienko”]

    I wish knew that it was OK to ask questions and that it’s OK to fail.

    “What I wish I’d known when I started my career”: 11 innovators tell us

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”49uySSA678U” photographer=”Simone Secci”]

    From the inside, via introspection, each of us feels that our beliefs are pretty damn sensible. Sure we might harbor a bit of doubt here and there. But for the most part, we imagine we have a firm grip on reality; we don’t lie awake at night fearing that we’re massively deluded.

    Crony Beliefs

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”bhoj9tHlsiY” photographer=”Viktor Talashuk”]

  • Reading List: Week 4, May 2022

    The road to the good life, you see, is paved with tears and furrowed brows as well as smiles and laughter.

    Don’t insist on being positive – allowing negative emotions has much to teach us

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”v9sAFGJ3Ojk” photographer=”ian dooley”]

    Efficiency is highly overrated; Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.

    103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”Hli3R6LKibo” photographer=”Adi Goldstein”]

    Documenting decisions and sharing discussions in virtual spaces is crucial to keeping teams on the same page.

    Slack Research Reveals These 3 Strategies Can Make Hybrid Workforces More Successful

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”ZFXZ_xMYTZs” photographer=”Tim Mossholder”]

    You want to be sure that you can see yourself not just in the role you’re currently applying for but that there is a career path at the organization that you’re excited about.

    38 Smart Questions to Ask in a Job Interview

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”pKeF6Tt3c08″ photographer=”Brendan Church”]

  • Reading List: Week 2, April 2022

    Some psychologists call this constant chasing of pleasure the “hedonic treadmill” because people who are constantly striving for a “better life” end up expending a ton of effort only to end up in the same place.

    The Disease of More

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”WNvCXtwG5h4″ photographer=”Thomas Le”]

    Many projects begin with principles (ex: easy, simple). But the hard part isn’t coming up with the principles so much as adhering to them or rather becoming subservient to them.

    Paper at 10

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”WmnsGyaFnCQ” photographer=”JJ Ying”]

    So moderating spam seems to quite clearly enable more free speech by making platforms for speech more usable. Without such moderation, the platforms would get less use and people would be less likely to be able to speak in the same manner.

    Why Moderating Content Actually Does More To Support The Principles Of Free Speech

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”erCPgyXNlto” photographer=”Etienne Boulanger”]

    While many of us have thought of being a good listener being like a sponge that accurately absorbs what the other person is saying, instead, what these findings show is that good listeners are like trampolines.

    What Great Listeners Actually Do

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”PwXIsh7QpsI” photographer=”Emiliano Vittoriosi”]

  • Reading List: Week 1, April 2022

    Very often it is when we are not seeking an answer that the information serendipitously presents itself, but when we consciously try to find something out, it remains stubbornly elusive, hidden in sources we have not yet imagined to consult.

    Serendipity and information discovery

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”p9EQ5Uqny5I” photographer=”Hudson Hintze”]

    Feedback is high leverage because it’s cheap for you to give, and provides high value to the recipient by giving them information early. Their alternative is having to guess at their own performance and behavioral impact.

    How To Criticize Coworkers

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”D9kOnC_1AHw” photographer=”Ricardo Gomez Angel”]

    The optimal environment for personal growth of is definitely one where the employee clearly sees the opportunities for an interesting career trajectory.

    The 3rd dimension of the matrix organization

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”SL1co_Etck8″ photographer=”Martin Sanchez”]

    People think, learn, behave, and experience the world around them in many different ways. Some of this diversity is due to neurological differences.

    What is neurodiversity?

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”pMW4jzELQCw” photographer=”Nathan Dumlao”]

  • Reading List: Week 5, March 2022

    Need visual mind-mapping with circles and lines? Maybe you do. But maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s just another distraction, focusing on the tools instead of your thinking.

    Write plain text files

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”gETBUi_oRgQ” photographer=”nadi borodina”]

    Removing the grade forced students to pay attention to my comments.

    I no longer grade my students’ work – and I wish I had stopped sooner

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”yMg_SMqfoRU” photographer=”Katrina Wright”]

    At a high level, the designer creates a product experience that enables each member of your target audience to complete the product journey efficiently and with minimal mental effort.

    Why Your UX Designer is Your Best Friend – The PM and UX Designer Relationship

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”v9FQR4tbIq8″ photographer=”Kelly Sikkema”]

    This article will first introduce you to some of the different styles used for personal names, and then some of the possible implications for handling those on the Web.

    Personal names around the world

    [ntt_rl_unsplash href=”NxCUU0lujD8″ photographer=”Jamie Street”]